Once the men left us, my uncle released me and started pacing. "Damn it, Felicity. What have you done?" he said with agitation. I didn't answer him, instead I sat down in one of the office chairs close by and lowered my head. "What a mess! First, I find out that you're one of Strange's freaks, then I find out you're affiliated with that deranged lunatic Cobblepot, and now this?! You're carrying his…child?!" He slammed his fist on the desk next to me. "If you're not trying to ruin me, you sure have a funny way of showing it! I thought your parents taught you better than that!" His last sentence reignited the spark from earlier, but before I could act on it, he suddenly grabbed my upper arms and spun me to face him. His red face was inches away from mine as he shouted in my face, "What do you have to say for yourself? Answer me!" I knew that my arms would be bruised after this, and that finally caused the spark in my heart to explode.
I shoved my uncle away from me with all my strength, causing him to stumble backwards. I stood to my feet and fisted my hands. "Don't…touch…me. Aubrey." I said his name with a frigid tone, no longer compelled to call him my family in that moment. "I don't give a damn about your stupid reputation! I am just living my life, how I choose. Besides, why do you care? Ever since Mom, Dad, and Ryan died, I haven't heard a single word from you. You didn't even bother to come to their funeral!" The older man before me started to stutter a bit, "Well…I w…was.. g…going through some…" "No! There is NO excuse, Aubrey. They are gone forever, and you decided that they weren't important enough to even say goodbye to." I then decided to echo his earlier breech of my personal space by coming close. "Well, I won't make that mistake. Goodbye Aubrey, I wish you a good life, but I will no longer be a part of it. Try not to get your life in danger again, I don't know if I'll be around to help you next time." With that, I left the precinct with my head held high and my anger still enflamed.
A couple of days later
Despite Edward's words, I couldn't believe that he was really dead. After what he did to me, I can't trust him if he told me that the sky is blue. So, I tried to do some research into what happened while I was gone. I doubted that I would be able to get help from the GCPD after my stunt there, so I decided to do some digging by myself. Since he used to be the mayor, I figured that there would be plenty of news coverage during the time that I was gone. So, I started at the library, scouring through microfilm for a couple of days. I found public events that he attended, including serving at the homeless shelter that I used to. I recognized a few of the people in the photos. There's Bob, Trish, Vincent...I remembered their faces and their stories and I was determined to go and visit soon.
There was a short article about Jervis Tetch, but he was arrested and taken to Arkham Asylum. Though I only encountered Jervis once, he still unnerved me with his talent at hypnotism. As I continued, I saw the slow decline of Oswald's political career in the form of a breakdown during a live television interview. Oh Ozzie...what happened? Though I didn't share my uncle's political know-how, it was obvious that his mayorship would be cut short after that. Afterwards, there were headlines about a city-wide power outage that resulted in chaos led by a man called "Jerome". There was a photo in which the man's manic grin was accompanied by crude lines surrounding his face and eyes. It looks like a mask I noted, but...it's his face... I had to fight nausea as I looked closer at the photo. As if I didn't have enough faces to haunt my nightmares, there's another one to add to the roster... After that,I noticed that the news quickly turned away from Oswald's disappearance, proving his lack of popularity at the end of his term. Obituaries crossed the projection for a 7th time when I was inspired to check with the Records department at City Hall. When I called, the dry sounding worker responded after a few minutes that there was no death record for the former mayor. I knew it, there's no way that someone as well-known as Oswald would be lost in the system, especially so quickly. This gave me hope to keep searching for him.
After a few days of tracking down records, I decided to start asking people that worked with him in the past; starting with his club. Everything was just as it was when I first entered the club what felt like forever ago. Even the bouncer at the door was the same as before. I asked him if he had seen Mr. Cobblepot lately, and his response was that it had been months since he had been there. Though I was disappointed, he encouraged me to talk to the manager and see what he knows. So, I took his advice and I found Anthony, the bartender from before, who was now the manager of the club. The room had several patrons enjoying a band playing on stage while he was walking next to the tables. "Ms. James!" he exclaimed happily when I approached. We embraced as old friends and after I told Anthony my mission; he enthusiastically offered his assistance, as much as he could. He promised to contact any old acquaintances that he knew of and to call me as soon as he heard something. After receiving this encouragement, I stood up to leave. "Before you go…" he asked, "could you sing a song for us? It's been so long, and we would love to hear you again." I hesitated, but then responded, "I would be honored."
Later that night
One song turned into several, and before I knew it; the club was closing for the night. As the patrons started to file out, I descended the stairs of the stage to sit down. My feet were sore from standing so long, in addition to the new center of gravity that my body started to adopt. As I breathed a sigh of relief, I saw Anthony approaching me. I noticed that he was gone for a while during my performance, during which I hoped he was making phone calls. However, the serious look on his face caused me to become worried. He sat in the chair across from me and took a deep breath. "So, I've called everyone that I could think of; and this is what I found out. You know that Mr. C kinda went nuts at a TV interview, right?" I shook my head and he continued, "Well, yeah. Then he ended up losing his position. And apparently, Mr. Cobblepot and Mr. Nygma had a falling out after some girl died." Edward mentioned someone that loved him…could it have been her? This caused me to pity the man, despite all that he had done. "It was a little while later that Mr. Cobblepot just disappeared off the face of the earth for a few weeks. But then someone said that he called Gabe and some other guys to this old estate outside the city. But no one has heard from his associates after that, it's like they disappeared off the face of the earth too. And now there are rumors that Oswald is gathering what's left of Strange's freaks to be his personal army to stand against Nygma. And that's all I could find out."
It took me a few minutes to process everything that Anthony relayed to me. Even though most of the information was vague and probably unreliable, it still required some effort to understand it all. Fortunately, Anthony could tell and gave me several minutes of silence. The most important detail lit up like a neon sign in my mind. He's alive…Edward was wrong. My hand cupped my stomach as I looked forward to introducing Ozzie to our child.